Those attending the meeting of the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) Board of Education on 9 September 2025 will witness a forlorn spectacle that is repeated every month, with only slight variations on the general circumstance that nothing is accomplished in behalf of the long-suffering students of the district.
None of the eleven or twelve people at which you will be looking knows much about academics.
Since this will surprise many of you, I therefore repeat >>>>>
None of the eleven or twelve people at which you will be looking knows much about academics.
This is true of Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams, who holds no graduate degree in a key academic subject area but rather touts herself as “Dr.” on the basis of the academically lightweight Education Doctorate (Ed.D.), for which she wrote such an abominable dissertation that she has withdrawn that document from public view. Sayles-Adams is following the Minnesota Read Act in implementing a Science of Reading Curriculum from the University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI) but otherwise she has introduced no academic initiatives of her own and has abandoned from the previous (Rochelle Cox) administration promising programs that included online ACT tutoring, online high dosage tutoring, and classroom Intervention Triads.
Cluelessness as to academic programming also abides in the members of the MPS Board of Education including the following >>>>>
>>>>> Chair Collin Beachy (at-large district member) is a special education teacher now working in St. Paul; Beachy is heavily influenced by the Minneapolis Federation of Educators and is resistant to innovative academic initiatives, reevaluation of low-enrollment school building usage--- and he has an authoritarian vibe according to which he would rather silence dissenting views.
>>>>> Vice-Chair Kim Ellison(at-large district member) has been perpetually elected for twelve years on the basis of name recognition as the ex-wife of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison but has been ineffective throughout her unfortunately long tenure.
>>>>> Clerk and chair of the Policy Committee Lori Norvell (District 5, covering Southeast and parts of South Minneapolis) is a middle school math teacher in Bloomington; like Beachy, she is heavily influenced by the Minneapolis Federation of Educators and resistant to needed change; she also chaired the corrupt Superintendent Task Force that oversaw the process resulting in the lamentable selection of Lisa Sayles-Adams as superintendent.
>>>>> Treasurer, chair of the Finance Committee, and District 1 (Northeast and part of Southeast Minneapolis) Director Abdi Abdul, the best of this incompetent Board, has a background of success in business and community leadership, but he is as ineffective as the others in terms of academic programming and needed change.
>>>>> District 2 (North Minneapolis) Director Sharon El-Amin, is the clearest among Board members in calling for reevaluation of school building usage but is ineffective, has no academic expertise, and is deeply culpable for maneuvering that brought Lisa Sayles-Adams to the Minneapolis Public Schools.
>>>>> District 3 (Cedar-Riverside and parts of South and Southeast Minneapolis) Director Lisa Skjefte was appointed to replace Fathia Feerayarre upon the latter’s resignation; she brings Native American (Anishinabe/Red Lake) advocacy to the Board but has demonstrated no acumen as to needed academic change.
>>>>> District 4 (Bryn Mawr, Uptown, Lowry Hill,
part of Linden Hills) Director Adriana Cerrillo
advocates for Latine students but does so ineffectively, with an absence of academic acumen; she has a self-image as a radical but quickly became a creature of the education establishment once on the Board.
>>>>> District 6 (South and Southeast Minneapolis) Member Greta Callahan, former teacher at Bethune Elementary and former president of the Minneapolis Federation of Educators Greta Callahan is the quintessential creature of the establishment--- resistant to academic change, opposed to school building closing or repurposing, and given to deriding objective assessment of student performance, especially with regard to the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs).
>>>>> At-Large District Member Joyner Emerick
passionately advocates for special education students but many of their
(Emerick is nonbinary) notions are impracticable; Emerick does a great deal of research and is
prepared for each meeting, but they have made most unfortunate remarks about
curriculum and pedagogy, seemingly without knowing that their views are
synchronous with anti-knowledge ideology promulgated by education professors
from the 1970s forward and had such deleterious consequences, especially for
impoverished students living at the urban core.
>>>>> Student Representatives Lyn Ampey (Southwest
High School) and Isaiah Martin (Camden High School) speak from time to time,
but they have no understanding of the key vexations of the district that result
in the abominable academic quality of the Minneapolis Public Schools.
…………………………………………………………………
Along the side walls of the assembly hall at each Board meeting sit senior Davis Center (central office) staff members.
These staff members include the following >>>>>
>>>> Senior Human Resources Officer Alicia Miller, Senior Finance Officer Ibrahima Diop, and Senior Operations Officer Tom Parent are competent at their jobs. Alicia Miller is an adept contract negotiator and has key tasks in her division, but she would never, as a sycophant fully deferential to Lisa Sayles-Adams, initiate the training necessary to overhaul teaching and school administrative staff for the implementation of knowledge-intensive, skill-replete curriculum. Ibrahima Diop, though also guilty of sycophantic behavior toward Sayles-Adams, is supremely talented and has guided the district through challenging financial circumstances. Tom Parent came to the Minneapolis Public Schools from St. Paul, where harassment allegations led that district to make a substantial payment to forestall formal court proceedings; Parent does competently oversee operations, the portfolio of which had also been under Diop’s administrative responsibility during the Rochelle Cox administration (1 July 2022 through 4 February 2024).
>>>> Deputy Superintendent Ty Thompson, Senior
Academic Officer Melissa Sonnek, and Associate Superintendents Yusuf Abdullah,
Shawn Harris-Berry, Lametria Eaddy, and Liz Keenan also sit along the side of
the assembly room. Though each of these
central office staff members have responsibility for creating or implementing
the academic program, not a single one of these officials, recalling the same
observation pertinent to the training of Lisa Sayles-Adams, has a graduate
degree in a key subject area; like
Sayles-Adams, if they have graduate degrees, those are received from academically
insubstantial departments, schools, or colleges of education.
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